J. B. Biggley
[played by Rudy Vallee, left]: “Ideas? That's what I look for. I keep
hiring a lot of fellows who are supposed to have brilliant ideas, but not one
of them will ever do what I tell him.” — How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967), based on the
novel by Shepherd Mead, adapted into a Pulitzer and Tony-winning musical with
book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert, music and lyrics by
Frank Loesser, movie written and directed by David Swift
In an effort
to build industry word-of-mouth before awards season, the musical dramedy La La Land premiered to North American audiences for the first time in
September 2016, at the Telluride and Toronto International Film Festivals,
earning such rapturous approval that it became the film to beat for Best
Picture Oscar.The film’s
promoters forgot an important lesson, however: don’t peak too soon lest
naysayers pick it apart and allow competitors to overtake it. So it proved in
the end the following winter, when La La Land walked off with six
Oscars except the one most coveted: Best Motion Picture of the Year.
All of
that seemed far away when these early audiences responded positively. At
Telluride, for instance, the film was greeted with two mid-movie ovations (following
the freeway and Griffith Park sequences) and another 20-second one at the end.
What
elicited the affection of these and later audiences? Certainly stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, displaying the same chemistry they brought
to Crazy Stupid Love and Gangster Squad, as well as a months-long
pre-shooting dedication that allowed them to surmount their lack of much prior
vocal and dance training.
But the
film also functioned as an irresistible double love story: not just between the
two attractive young people at its center, but with the city that served as the
focus of their entertainment dreams.
Writer-director
Damien Chazelle and cinematographers Linus Sandgren and Tom Cross might
not have produced the grittiest cinematic depiction of Los Angeles, but they
did produce one of the most heartbreaking: a place that forces you to choose
between love and ambition. “That's L.A.,” says Ryan Gosling’s Sebastian, a jazz
pianist struggling to open his own club. “They worship everything, and they
value nothing."
For one reason or another, I didn’t watch La La Land when it was released. It might have stayed that way except that, a couple of weeks ago, I noticed on YouTube a clip of an upbeat early song from the film, “Someone in the Crowd,” featuring Stone’s Mia stepping out with her roommates to attend a Hollywood party where they can be seen and network.
I was hooked, and I’m sure
you would be, too, if you haven’t seen the movie already.
Neither
Stone nor Gosling are professional singers or dancers, so you won’t find the
pyrotechnics in a Cabaret, All That Jazz, or Chicago. But
you won’t find the cynicism rampant in those Bob Fosse musicals, either. This
is unapologetic, heart-on-its-sleeve romanticism, with the lovers literally
soaring above ground in Griffith Observatory in the “Dancing in the Stars”
scene.
Moreover, Stone and Gosling, having trained intensively for their roles (with Gosling, a neophyte on the piano, practicing for months so he could perform the jazz tunes himself with no CGI or hand double) acquit themselves marvelously.
And
Chazelle, with help from choreographer Mandy Moore, have drawn the best
possible lessons from those MGM musicals with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, as
well as the poignant French 1964 “sung-through” musical, The Umbrellas of
Cherbourg.
What led Moonlight
to overtake La La Land in the Best Picture contest?
All the
advance word-of-mouth for the latter also provided opportunities for backlash,
focusing on how the film seemed crafted to capitalize on Academy voters' penchant for rewarding movies about actors (most notoriously, Shakespeare in
Love over Saving Private Ryan); on how it was more a retro musical
than a movie with original content; and how, in violation of jazz history, it
depicted a white musician induced to compromise his pursuit of pure craft by an
African-American tastemaker (John Legend, inexplicably playing guitar onscreen
rather than his familiar piano).
On the
other hand, Moonlight came to embody an underdog spirit—particularly
following the November 2016 Presidential election, when the film’s entirely
African-American cast (a first in the Academy’s nomination history) and its LGBTQ
theme represented defiance of what Hollywood deemed Donald Trump’s reactionary
politics.
I have not
seen Moonlight so I can’t comment on its merits versus La La Land.
But the atmosphere of fear now sweeping the entertainment industry constitutes
a far different environment from what existed a decade ago, it’s possible that
a different Oscar voting outcome might occur today.
I suspect that the moviegoing public would, if given a chance, vote for La La Land, in any case. Box-office grosses are never to be confused with value.
But during
their theatrical runs, La La Land grossed $504.6 million worldwide,
while Moonlight pulled in a considerably more modest $65.3 million, even
with the help of that Best Picture statuette from the Academy.
